Brace yourself: Netflix CEO says price increases are coming

Netflix is awesome but you’ll have to pay more for it in the future. Per The Guardian, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings this week told users to brace for price increases in the future, although he said that they would be gradual and wouldn’t happen overnight.

“We want to take it very slow,” Hastings said. “Over the next decade I think we’ll be able to add more content and have more value and then price that appropriately.”

Netflix plans to spend roughly $5 billion on original content in 2016. The company has been aggressively building up its Netflix Originals empire this year and has scored more new hit series including The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Marvel’s Daredevil and Sense8. This expansion comes at a cost, however, and Netflix will need to raise prices to cover them.

In addition to increasing overall prices, Hastings told investors that Netflix plans to “motivate people to move up to the two-stream and the high-def and the ultra-high-def,” which cost more money per month to subscribe to.

Netflix reported its quarterly earnings this week and revealed that it now has 65 million subscribers worldwide, including 42 million in the United States. These numbers easily beat Wall Street’s expectations and showed that the Netflix juggernaut is showing no signs of slowing down so far.